Someday over my burial plot perhaps a statue of Mojo, my black beagle mutt, will rest her head near my shoulder. I got the idea from doggy graveyard statuary during a stroll through Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain, where notable carvings of pets watch over loved ones buried there.

The 275-acre cemetery was built in 1848 as Boston’s first park. Its trees, lake, romantic architecture and memorial art were created during Victorian times when the notion of the eternal world was symbolized by natural beauty, rest and serenity. Compared with much earlier Puritan-era tombstones carved with winged skulls and warnings, Victorian motifs are far more sweet – angels, garlands, urns and animals. Throughout the cemetery, the bonds between pets and their beloved owners are memorialized for all time.

Inside Forest Hills, on a spot along Cedar and Andromeda avenues, a Scottish terrier made of marble stands by the grave of its little mistress, Emma Savage (1839-1841). Pollution has eroded its canine features, but 172 years later, the little dog’s symbolic affection remains true.

Elsewhere, near Iris and Tulip paths, Tip the Dog has stood watch for a century. Its breed is unclear and the workmanship is homely. What is unusual for that time is that Tip wears a collar and a nametag. In Tip’s day, unlicensed dogs were shot. Keeping dogs as household pets only began in the 1860s, and pet licensing started in the 1890s. Therefore, Tip’s tags indicate great family love and caring.

There is a spot at Larch and Spruce where dogs are said to roll and sniff curiously, as if for one of their own. There in the leafy shade, five deceased spiritualists lie buried in a cemetery plot with Carlo the Invisible Dog, a reference to its unauthorized burial there by its owner, Frances Conant, a 19th-century medium, who believed companion pets existed beyond death, and before her death she reported a vision of Carlo and her deceased brother appearing to her.

At White Pine and Juniper, a life-sized Bernese Mountain Dog slumps in melancholy over the graves of Henry and Barnard Lucinda (1810-1863; 1813-1913).

Such statuary is easy to understand. Pets offer devotion and faithfulness too often lacking in their two-legged superiors. I was raised to view pets as messy, unnecessary responsibilities, and my childhood pet ownership never lasted long. I didn’t own my first dog until I was almost 30, and now I could never imagine life without such a loving companion. Our little Mojo is aptly named because she’s “our little bit of black magic.”

At Forest Hills, sculptures of animals, such as lambs and eagles, are symbolic of appealing traits. For example, the heroism of horses is depicted at Poplar and Columbine at a Boston Fire Department monument, circa 1909, which captures fire horses in action on four bronze plaques.

Page 2 of 2 - As I walk beneath the colorful foliage, I’m moved by pets memorialized in expectant repose waiting for those who slumber beneath.